As some citizens yelled “shame on you,” San Diego County Supervisors voted Tuesday to give themselves a 12.5 percent pay raise, with newly elected Supervisor Kristin Gaspar opposing the increase at her first meeting.

The move increases the supervisors’ salary by more than $19,000 and also raises their pension.

About two dozen people from groups representing labor, faith organizations and families addressed the supervisors, with many saying the money could be better spent on services to help the needy in the county.

Supervisors’ salaries are set at 80 percent of the salaries of Superior Court judges. The vote on Tuesday will shift the formula twice this year, to 85 percent on March 17 and 90 percent on Dec. 7.

The base salary for supervisors will increase from the current $153,290 to $162,870 and then $172,451 under the new formula.

Supervisor Ron Roberts, who proposed the salary increase, said it was appropriate because the formula has not been adjusted in decades.

“The adjustment before us today is fair and reasonable,” he said.

Roberts noted that San Diego County was behind only Los Angeles County in its size in California, yet supervisors in San Bernardino County earn more. The adjustment will make the supervisors second only to Los Angeles in pay, although 150 other San Diego county workers still will earn more than them, he said.

Tuesday’s vote was the final step in a process that began last month when the board voted on the pay raise without discussion or explanation.

Then-Supervisor Dave Roberts, who lost his seat to Gaspar in the November election, was the only member voting against the raise.

Supervisors Greg Cox, Dianne Jacob, Bill Horn and Ron Roberts voted in favor of the pay hike. All are termed out and can not run for re-election.

Before voting against the raise, Gaspar said that it was difficult for her to vote for a pay raise when she had been sworn into office just a day earlier.

“For many years both in the public and private sector I have been responsible for implementing compensation packages,” she said. “This is a duty I take very seriously.”

Gaspar, a business owner and former mayor of Encinitas, said she holds herself to the same standards she holds others to when considering salaries.

“One of the first questions I always ask myself is, ‘Is the compensation appropriate for the work performed?’” she said. “Awkwardly, I sit here, having been sworn in just 24 hours ago, and I can be the first to admit that I don’t know how to get past that first fundamental question.”

Audience members cheered as she cast a no vote, and some had booed or yelled other things at the supervisors during the meeting.

The outburst prompted Jacob, who had been named chair of the board that morning, to call for more civility in the meeting.

“We may not always agree, but we do have a responsibility to respect other people’s opinion,” she said.

No public speaker endorsed the pay raise.

Jacob told speakers in the audience that they had made many compelling arguments, and she said supervisors would adjust their priorities when voting on the budget this year.

“We’ve listened very carefully to what you have presented today, and I thank you for being here and making those presentations,” she said.

Speaker John Van Doorn, who ran for the Board of Supervisors in 2008 and 2010, predicted the salary increase actually could be as high as 21 percent because of the domino effect that will come when judges’ salaries increase after other state employees get raises.

“I found it unconscionable that supervisors can vote on their own salaries,” he said.

Estimating that the supervisors could earn an additional $30,000 annually because of the raise plus pensions for the rest of their lives, Van Doorn speculated that the supervisors could each earn up to $700,000 from the county by the end of their lives.

Van Doorn also questioned the timing of the vote, which was proposed shortly after the November election, allowing the termed-out supervisors to raise their salaries without repercussions at the ballot. He said he would like a grand jury to investigate if the supervisors violated open-meeting laws by privately discussing the vote before the December’s meeting.

People speaking against the pay raise included members of the Service Employees International Union, the San Diego Organizing Project, Invest in San Diego Families Coalition and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action.

“We all need better wages, but they shouldn’t increase their salaries if they can’t increase and invest in the needs of San Diego’s working families and San Diego workers,” the Rev. Kathleen Owens of the First Unitarian Universalist Church said before the meeting,

She and other speakers said the county should change its priorities to give more to help the homeless, families and mental health services.

Nathan Wollmann, a human services specialists with the county and steward with SEIU, said before the meeting that he and other speakers wanted to tell the board that the money could be better spent.

“While other programs are suffering, it just doesn’t seem like the right move to do,” he said. “We’re saying if you’re willing to invest in yourselves, are you willing to do the same thing for your community?”

The Rev. Wayne Riggs, acting executive director of Interfaith Center for Worker Justice and a board member with the Uptown Faith Community Service Center, told supervisors they should not consider a pay raise when so many in the county are struggling.

Lileana Robles, a member of Invest in San Diego Families Coalition and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action, said the coalition had asked the board last summer to increase its investment in homeless programs, mental health services, affordable housing and help for immigrants.

She used herself as an example of the frustrations that many needy in San Diego face.

“I applied for a Section 8 (housing) voucher in 2007,” she said. “My son was 8 years old. He is going to be 19 years old this year, and I still wait. Why? It’s unacceptable.”